“It’s been a long time in a close game that I’ve ever seen ten guys play ten minutes. Brandon Taylor hasn’t been getting a lot of playing time lately, but he just doesn’t understand that. He’s been battling through that in practice. He’s doing a great job. He gets his number called and he had a lot of poise, he hit shots. You would have thought he was a seasoned veteran. I thought that Justin Seymour hit some big shots for us too. Get into some foul trouble, we’re turnover prone- we had to get some guys sitting down due to that. It was an absolute team win. We needed some guys to make some plays or we wouldn’t have the result that we have.”

On Loveridge and his play near the end

“That’s huge. That might have been one of the plays of the game. For us, certainly that tip in was a huge swing. But that’s kind of the message for everybody. It’s not going to be easy on certain nights. It’s just about the next play. You’ve got to keep battling adversity. It’s an old cliché, but you know. We got ourselves down in the first half and we went with the second unit. They went into some trapping half court, three quarter court trapping, and really gave us a lift. We were able to come into the locker room up three. So there were a lot of guys that I think stayed persistent with the effort and never stopped. At the end of the day I think Jordan’s example is a good example to never quit, keep going.”

On gritty games

“You can never predict what’s going to happen, but if every game were perfect and fun like a Boise game there wouldn’t be much excitement with this. During the game I was ready to throw up most of the game. Now that it’s over and you can get the win it’s a different story. The key for us is to break down the film tonight. We’ve got a couple of new fires to put out with some execution and decision making, and you just jump back in the saddle for Friday night. You try to do it all over again. It’s always fun when you can win by a lot of points, but the reality is with our team right now we’re going to be in some dog fights. We just kind of have to accept it and battle until the end.”

On how it feels to win the seventh game of the season

“Winning is fun. Winning is good medicine for people. It helps your psyche, but we really aren’t approaching this any different than we did a year ago.”

“You’ve got to give them a lot of credit. Brandon Taylor he came in tonight and gave us an instant spark. He hasn’t been getting a lot of minutes in the game, but it’s never changed his personality or changed his drive. He goes hard in practice. Coach called his number tonight and I’d say that he performed pretty well. Justin Seymour does what he does He hits big shots. That’s what he did tonight. They played with confidence. It’s good for our program to see freshmen play like that. It gives you a lot of hope for the future. These guys are the future it’s looking pretty bright.”

On holding on for the win

“It shows a lot of character. Coach told us this is how it was going to be. These guys [SMU] have been playing great basketball, great defense, obviously they have a great coach. This wasn’t going to be a game where we just came in here and walked all over them. This was going to be, a coach would say, a boxing match.”

“It was big for me to be comfortable. I’m not going to lie, it’s obvious that I don’t get a lot of minutes. In the minutes that I have had previously in the season I think I’ve been sped up. I think the difference with this time was when I came off the bench I was just under control. There wasn’t any fear, it was just under control.

“That was hard- ten days without practice in the middle of the season. We beat up on each other a lot, and it was hard. It kind of showed in the first half- we played a little sloppy, we missed some bunnies. But I think in the second half we just calmed down and let the game come to us.”

SMU Head Coach Larry Brown

Overall thoughts:

“It was an ugly finish. It was tie game and the end of the game was unfortunate. We did a good job on the boards but did not shoot well. If we did not have so many turnovers and missed baskets in the first half, then the game could have ended a little better. They are a good team and well coached. We do not have a bench and their bench was phenomenal tonight.”

On the Finish

“That was just a referee trying to embarrass a team, you don’t end a game like that. I was talking to the refs all game about offensive rebound fouls the same. That is a difficult way to lose it. That being said, you have to be smarter than I was and understand that is a difficult situation.”